Three months after receiving their loans, Class II graduates have begun to repay their loans and several have already jumped ahead to make prepayments… so far so good. Class I graduates are also now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of their loan terms. Four of our thirteen Class I entrepreneurs have already completely finished repaying their loans.

Even more exciting than the numbers are the stories we’ve heard about how the loans have affected our participants and their communities. Here are three of them:

A Mobile Pharmacist Plants a Church

Simon from Class I used his loan to buy a motorbike to carry medicine into remote villages, where there are almost no accessible medical clinics. Because his motorbike allows him to cover a much greater area than his bicycle, he began doing business in a new village called Lamardo. As he built relationships with the people of Lamardo, he also shared the good news of Jesus Christ with them. Eventually, he brought several of the villagers to a Christian wedding in a nearby village. When the Gospel was preached at this wedding and the people of Lamardo heard it, these people believed. They went back to Simon and asked him to help them plant a church in their village.

A Provisions Store Owner Finishes School

Paul from Class I used his loan to reopen his provisions store. When Paul was young, he never got the chance to finish secondary school because he worked to help his family make enough money for his younger brothers to go to school instead. Now that Paul’s provisions store is generating profit and running smoothly, he is not only paying for all of his children to go to school, but Paul is finishing his own secondary education in his late thirties! Paul continues to pastor the church in his village. He is also now discipling a young man who just came to Christ during one of Videre’s past trips after hearing the Gospel from one of our team members. All of this has been possibly in large part due to Paul’s provisions store!

A Coca-Cola Seller Gets Married

Joseph from Class I used his loan to buy Coca-Cola products to sell. He has never struggled with repaying his loan to date, and we were recently informed that he is getting married! In Ghanaian culture, the groom must pay a dowry to the bride’s family. Oftentimes, it is difficult for the men to come up with enough money to pay for the dowry. But it seems that this was not a problem for Joseph. There is no doubt that his profitable business directly or indirectly allowed him to take a wife!

Congratulations to Videre’s Class II graduates in Yendi, Ghana! Out of the 30 participants who entered our business as mission training program in September, these 17 completed the program and received loans last week!

Throughout the process, participants had to prove themselves to be business-savvy, to have outstanding character, and to show a desire and strategy for sharing Christ with others. Phase III was the last evaluation phase for this class of potential entrepreneurs.

The Phase III team began by visiting several entrepreneurs’ businesses to gain a better understanding of the business context we were dealing with. We visited Timothy at his provisions store (below). Timothy has a provisions store deep in the rural communities, and he is the sole provider of general provisions for not only his village but several surrounding villages:

During the training days, we opened every day with worship and prayer:

On the first day of training, we discussed relationships from a biblical perspective and how they could be affected by our businesses. We discussed the difference between business and personal expenses and how important it is to keep them separate. We did some role play so that the participants, who come from an oral storytelling culture, could tangibly grasp the concepts of how to deal with difficult situations and resolve relational conflicts. Below Rita has the task of dealing with her “parents” who heard that she received a loan and demands that she give them the money. The rest of the class gave feedback after every scenario played:

On the second day of training, we talked about marketing and started the preliminary rounds of the famous Sales Pitch Competition. Here Lydia has several minutes to pitch her product (rice) to her customer.

The Sales Pitch Competition bracket looked like this at the end of Day 2:

The third day of training began with a session on evangelism. A few of the local pastors, Azindow, Emmanuel and Yakubu, spoke to the group about how to share the Gospel through their businesses. “Everyone here believes in some kind of god,” Pastor Azindow says to the class, “So you must make sure you share about Jesus Christ and be clear that He is the only way to God. Simply saying ‘God bless you’ is not the Gospel. Your business gives you opportunities to build relationships with people from many different villages. It only takes one person in each village to believe in order for the Gospel to reach others in the villages. Just like the Samaritan woman.” Henry Liao also got up to share from his heart:

We finished Day 3 by working on money management (basic financials), record keeping, reinvestment strategies, and loan terms. Here Leona works with her group on plowing back profit for each person’s specific business.

One of the participants, Sana who sells shea butter, is thrilled to have learned how to keep track of her money by keeping them in different colored clothes, even though she is illiterate! Here we see that in one week, she makes 140 GHC in revenue and 122.80 in total expenses, thus 22.20 profit (about $13 per week). Out of that profit, she uses 8.20 GHC for tithing, saving and family, and 14 to reinvest back into her business or save for a future business purchase.

The final day, Day 4, began with the semifinals and finals of the Sales Pitch Competition. Here’s a glimpse of how the winner, Miriam (who sells fabric and sandals) did it. The class gave feedback that she was the best because she closed the sale by offering a discount for future purchases in exchange for referrals from her first-time customers. She also shared the Gospel as she sold to the customer. Miriam won the first place prize of a gallon of cooking oil. The second place winner received a bag of rice, and third place received a long bar of local soap.

The graduates then each received their Certificate of Completion for the program:

Finally, each one received his or her loan. Because most are illiterate, the signature of choice on the loan contract was a blue thumbprint!

Please pray for these 17 entrepreneurs, so that they can effectively use their loans to grow their businesses and share the Gospel with those who have not heard.

Ruth Chan is currently interning with Videre as an Operations Intern during her winter break as she pursues her Masters in Public Administration at The Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She graduated from Cornell University in 2011 with a degree in Policy Analysis and Management. Here is what she has to say about her experience with Videre so far:

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17 ESV)

During the past several weeks, my internship with Videre has been like an exciting crash course that combines development economics, business planning, Gospel-centered creativity, and cross-cultural evangelism. Somehow, all the pieces have fit neatly together into a coherent whole, but it is not Videre that ultimately unites them all. Neither is it the conviction to use business as mission (BAM), as important as that is. Rather, it is the underlying vision of Videre and all of Christian life – the simple truth that whatever we do can be used for God’s glory through Jesus Christ.

Through Videre, I am continually reminded that the Christian life is not only about commitment to a local church, sharing the Good News, praying, or studying God’s Word. Instead, living as a Christian is even better and deeper because it joins all that we are and do into worship to God. There is no divide between activities that are seemingly “sacred” and those that are “secular.” Instead, each moment of our lives is redeemed and transformed into opportunities to reflect the character and image of God. Whether someone is a pastor, business volunteer, entrepreneur, or team leader, their commitment to honor God in their work and life glorifies God.

Reflecting on this powerful truth presents both a challenge and encouragement. Dedicating every word and deed to Christ is what He commands, and it’s hard! On the other hand, what a promise to know that each moment of my life is precious to God! What could possibly be more exciting than knowing that even the most mundane activities can be valuable praise to Him? As difficult as the task may be, the greatness of God’s redemptive work draws us in.

As the hymnwriter Isaac Watts writes:

Love so amazing so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

RUTH CHAN
Videre 2011 Winter Intern

Videre needs three business professionals to go on a Phase III trip to complete the business training program for 18 entrepreneurs in Ghana!

In September, a team went on a Phase I trip to begin teaching 30 participants how to use their businesses to share the Gospel.

In October, a second team went on a Phase II trip to create business plans with 21 participants who came out of Phase I.

Now we have 18 entrepreneurs who made it through Phase II and are anxiously waiting for their loans. We need a team to go on a Phase III trip so that these entrepreneurs can complete the program and graduate before they are funded!

On the Phase III trip, the team will provide training for the final 18 entrepreneurs in small groups and work with them in the following ways:

• Build savings and reinvestment schedules for long-term business growth
• Review specific loan terms and qualifications for a loan
• Teach on evangelism in the marketplace
• Teach on the importance of keeping records
• Understand how to nurture relationships with family members and employees through the business
• Participate in a sales pitch competition
• Role play on specific what-if scenarios tailored to their business plans

The trip is scheduled for January 20 – 29, 2012. Email iliang@videre.org if you are interested.

SUBMIT A TRIP APPLICATION NOW!

The Phase II team returned from Ghana on the last day of October. This team was uniquely diverse, as it was comprised of business professionals from the United States, Kenya, and Ghana.

The team worked with 21 participants who came back from Phase I in September. The team visited some of their business to get an idea of what it means to do business in northern Ghana. Below is John Kaserman as he visits Rita, who sells sewing materials and accessories, and her husband Timothy, a tailor, at their home that also serves as their workplace. Visiting the entrepreneurs at their workplace helps team members understand the business context of where these entrepreneurs operate.

Each of the team members then sat with these participants one-on-one and vetted their business plans. Mark and his translator Solomon (center) worked with Yakubu (left), an entrepreneur who sells medicine in twelve different villages. Yakubu was formerly a Muslim who started two or three mosques. Now he uses his business to heal the sick and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with hundreds of people.

After an extreme vetting process, we determined that there are 18 fundable entrepreneurs in Class 2. These entrepreneurs have not only proven their business savvy and impressive plans to grow their businesses, but they have also shown us their hearts to use their businesses as an extension of their calling to show the love of Jesus Christ.

These entrepreneurs are now waiting for their loans. The average loan size for an entrepreneur is $638. Depending on the individual business, the loan size ranges from $156 to $1291.

We need your help and generous contribution to fund these loans!

Click here to make a donation now to sponsor one of our 18 entrepreneurs.

Abukari and Joke Yakubu are Videre’s main contacts for our local partnership in Ghana. They have dedicated their lives to see the Good News penetrate northern Ghana. Abukari oversees more than 20 churches in the Yendi region. This excerpt from their recent newsletter is just a glimpse of the work they do:

 Radio with a Mission

The village of Buguya, has a population of about 1,000 people and is about 145km from Tamale where our weekly radio broadcast is transmitted from and about 120km from Yendi where we live. Buguya literally means ‘the home of idols’. About 96% of the village’s population is Muslim who practice syncretism. Their occupation is mainly farming and hunting.

The community had never had any former contact with Christians or heard the Good News of Jesus Christ. However, through our weekly radio broadcast ‘Hour of Hope’ the people in Buguya heard the Good News for the very first time in their mother tongue, Dagbani. They contacted Abukari and he was able to visit them and share further about the Christian life. He later made a return visit with his team of evangelists. Since the people are farmers, they decided to have an evangelistic service in the night after the day’s work in the fields was finished. The experience of that service was amazing. Men and women, old and young, all gathered in the open dark to listen to the Gospel preached to them in the language of their heart. The crowd was so big that we had to use eight lanterns and torch lights to lighten up the place a little. The people were so quiet and attentive as they listened to the good news. It was the first time in many years that the evangelists received such a good reception; a crowd fully attentive to the Gospel without pouring insults on them or throwing stones at them. At the end of the message 14 people gave their lives to Jesus – Praise the Lord for this great open door!

Evangelism in Buguya

In trying to find a way of discipling them, Abukari and his team realized that there is no single adult in the village who can read and write in either English or Dagbani. We hope to be able to start a literacy class in the near future for the people in this community. Pray for this village as BCA intends to start a literacy class for the people in the community so that they will be able to read the Word of God.

Transportation to visit this remote village is another challenge as an evangelist would have to visit the new believers regularly to help and encourage them in their spiritual growth. We hope and pray that Buguya (the home of idols) will become the ‘the home and beacon of the gospel of Jesus Christ’.

For more information about Abukari and Joke’s ministry, visit their blog: http://yakubufamghana.blogspot.com/

A few days ago, a former Videre business coach shared about the experience in Ghana that had made the greatest impression on her. She said something that I will never forget:

“Those pastors in Ghana… they are so faithful. They are going to have mansions in heaven.”

Another coach said, “Yes, I’ll have to ask if I can visit their mansions the way I visited their mud huts on earth.”

She said, “I’ll ask, ‘Can I be a servant in your mansion?’”

Pastor Allahsan leads his family through a bible study every morning at dawn.

Today, a new team of seven business coaches leaves for Ghana to kick off the business as mission program for our second class of entrepreneurs. There will be thirty participants coming into the program with different businesses. The team will visit the participants’ villages to see some of the businesses and then do three days of business as mission training with them. During the training, coaches will work with small groups of participants to create mock business plans that are judged in a business plan competition on the last day. Three of the team members will spend the last two days training 32 pastors from different villages.

The team will be working with some of the poorest people in the world. Most of them are illiterate and live on less than $2 per day. They live in mud huts and some cannot afford to buy meat more than once a month. But these pastors and participants have given their lives to Christ and are living for the good news to be shared in an area where they are persecuted for their faith.

Some things aren’t as they seem. Maybe one day, those with the least will live in mansions because God will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You are faithful over few things; I will make you a ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:21). And those living in mansions now will live in mud huts in eternity and wonder how they got there. I hope the team is prepared to visit mansions on this trip.

What does it mean for believers to live missionally through business?

On Thursday, September 1st, Iris Liang, the Executive Director of Videre, will lead a discussion on the calling and practicalities of business as mission. She will also present opportunities for businesspeople to go on short-term trips to the least-reached regions of the world.

When: 6:30 – 8:30pm, Thursday, September 1^st

Where: The Village Church Dallas Northway, Fellowship Hall

Dinner will be provided. The event is free.

You do NOT have to be a member of the Village Church to attend. Register online for the event!

Videre firmly believes that in order to build relationships with our entrepreneurs and truly understand their business context, we cannot just arrive at a meeting hall and run through a curriculum. When our teams arrive in Yendi, we visit the businesses at their locations and sometimes even visit the entrepreneurs’ homes in the villages. Iris has taken it a step further to stay with our participants in their huts and villages to experience life the way they do. Why the extreme? Because Jesus came down from His throne in Heaven to live in the brokenness that we live in and to show His love for us by dying on the cross. Maybe it shouldn’t be the extreme, but the norm!

Home

This is what most people in northern Ghana call home (here are Adisa’s and Awabu’s). These mud huts are built to release heat during the day and retain heat during the night, but it was so hot for me that it made little difference! A typical house generally has several hut structures that serve as rooms for different purposes. There’s also an open area in the middle for cooking, drying shea nuts, washing clothes, etc. If people can afford it, they use metal corrugated sheets for the roof so that rain doesn’t come through damaged grass-thatched roofs and windstorms don’t blow them away. There’s also a roofless structure that’s semi-enclosed for bucket bathing and urinating. Depending on the village, there’s either a designated defecation area in the bush for the entire village or, if lucky, a communal latrine.

Bed

This was where I slept when I stayed with Diana. I was fortunate to have brought an inflatable mat with me. Most people cannot afford mattresses, so they sleep on a thin mat on the hard ground. Some can afford mosquito nets, but since many cannot, young children in particular are especially susceptible to malaria. I brought my own mosquito net, which I requested to be tied outside if it was too hot to sleep inside the hut. If a rainstorm came through to cool the night, then I slept inside the huts. Because most of the villages do not have electricity, I was amazed at how functional people were after dark (unlike those of us who are used to light) and how bright the moon can be to light the way. I usually woke up at 5:30am when the sun rose because that’s when the day starts.

Cooking

Cooking is extremely time-consuming for the women. Not only do they have to get firewood, which sometimes takes hours to gather, but they cook with pots on open fires, which aren’t very efficient. This also causes significant respiratory problems for many of the women and children. The first night I stayed at Amina’s hut, my eyes and throat were so irritated by the smoke from the fire, that I had to leave the house multiple times and had a hoarse throat for several days.

The staple food in northern Ghana is Tuo Zaafi or “TZ” (pronounced “t-zet”). It’s a thick porridge-like ball made by mixing water with corn and cassava flour, and is usually eaten with some type of soup (like peanut soup with tomato sauce, fish, and other ingredients). Another staple is fufu, which is made by pounding boiled yams (or cassava and yams in the south) and also eaten with peanut or tomato-based soup. Fufu is pounded to be slippery so that locals swallow it without chewing. Food is eaten by hand!

Once in a while, families will buy a little meat or slaughter a chicken to add to the soup, but some families can’t afford meat more than once a month. Because it’s their custom to slaughter a chicken for a special guest who stays with them, each of the families slaughtered a valuable chicken for me. It was true generosity… to give what little one has so graciously to a stranger.

Water

Every day, local women put large buckets on their heads and head off to fetch water. If they are lucky to live in a village with a borehole, they will not have to go too far to get clean water. But those without that privilege will walk, sometimes for hours, to the nearest river to get the (muddy) water that they need for washing clothes, bathing, and drinking. Every family I stayed with had access to a borehole, so each family offered me clean water to use for bucket bathing (I brought filtered water for drinking). I went with the women to pump water from the boreholes, but told them that if I carried the water on my head, there would be none left by the time we got back to their house!

Farming

June, July, and August is rainy season in the Northern Region when everyone goes farming and women in more remote villages gather shea nuts and other nuts and fruits that have seeds to be collected and sold. When I stayed with Adisa in Nalogba, I learned the process of harvesting the dawa dawa seeds found in the long dawa dawa beans (pictured above). Women use them in soups or roast them to eat, and it’s very profitable to sell the seeds. Adisa has made it part of her business for this season.

People come together to do communal farming by working on a rotation basis on each person’s farm. One day, Pastor Azindow mobilized a large group of people to sow nine acres of corn. Labor was divided: the men used large sticks to drill rows of planting holes into the ground, and the women (and some men) follow by planting corn seeds. This year, rain has been infrequent, so the farmers are worried about the delay in sowing.

I went with the group to sow corn, and found that it was 1) not my favorite activity and 2) physically harder than it looks. The only thing that kept me going was the vision of what it might look like in September… acres of tall corn ready for the harvest and roasted corn to eat! It is the same vision that James gives us in the Bible:

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You, also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

James 5:7-8

Iris Liang is staying in Ghana this month to shadow each of Videre’s graduates for a day doing his or her business. There are several reasons for this:

1. It gives us a good idea of who’s really executing their business plan and who isn’t.
2. It gives us a chance to provide feedback to the entrepreneurs on their businesses.
3. It shows the entrepreneurs that our goal is not simply to collect loan repayments, but that we love them as brothers and sisters in Christ and have their best interest in mind. For a relational culture like theirs, this is a tremendous encouragement to them.
4. It helps us better understand their business context so that we can improve our training program for future classes.
5. It gives us great stories to tell about just how difficult it is to be an entrepreneur living in an area of poverty.

Here is Iris’ account of some of the entrepreneurs she has stayed with so far and her experience as their (free!) employee of the day.

So far, I’ve stayed in four villages, six huts, and worked for seven of our thirteen entrepreneurs. I’ve been impressed by each of them and staying with them has allowed me to identify exactly what their competitive advantages are. Here are my days with two of them: Amina and Yakorl.

Amina: Cooked rice seller

The first rooster crowed at 2:45am right in front of Amina’s hut, as though it were a conditioned alarm clock. Amina sprang up, started a fire and had a pot of water on it in the next five minutes. Since it was my first night staying in a hut, I couldn’t really sleep, so I watched her as she worked. I have never seen anyone wake up at 2:45am and be that energetic. At that moment, I realized something Amina already knew: she is the best cooked rice lady in all the surrounding villages simply because she is willing to get up at three in the morning consistently to cook. I’m not even sure her rice is much more spectacular than the next rice lady’s. But what she knows is that most people want to buy rice between 5:30am and 7am (after Muslim prayers and before farming), and in order to catch that market, she has to get up at 3am.

Her peak selling time was around 6:30 – 7. By 8am, she had finished selling all of her rice. When I counted the money she made from selling rice alone, it was 37.75 Cedis, about $25. She is now able to save 5 Cedis per day. Her husband tells me that the loan has allowed her to significantly increase the amount that she is able to sell. But her day isn’t over. Since she bought a refrigerator with her loan, she now also sells local drinks and cold water in the afternoon when the sun gets hot and people are breaking from their farms. That’s when my work started. I stood behind the coolers and greeted everyone who passed by, asking if they wanted to buy water in Dagbani (“Te da quam?”). They usually stop in complete shock that a “white” lady can speak their language, so they come over and buy water!

In addition to selling rice and water, Amina now also sells sacks of charcoal by the side of the road. By the end of the day, Amina has made at least 45-50 Cedis from all of her business activities!

Yakorl: Fish and okra seller

Next I went to DC Kura to stay with Yakorl. Yakorl had just given birth to a baby boy a week before I arrived. In anticipation of her baby arriving in May, she made repayments for two months in April to account for slower business with a newborn. Yakorl is all about two things when it comes to her business: making her customers laugh and the quality of her product. She is the funniest and quirkiest of all our participants, and people know her for it. Even though she has three competitors selling the same thing, most people still like to buy from her. In fact, she used to go house-to-house to sell, but she has made such a reputation for herself that people now go to her house to buy, like this man here.

Yakorl is always careful about the quality of her product. She usually gets her products from Saboba town, which takes two days of roundtrip travel. When she was too pregnant to make the trips, her sister went for her but twice did not return with the quality of fish Yakorl wanted. Yakorl immediately stopped it and would go to a closer town to pick the fish herself, even though it cost more.

Since Yakorl couldn’t sell house-to-house with a newborn, I went in her place with her sister, who carried the basin of fish on her head. My strategy was to greet in the local language as I approach a house, and say “Aga da ijan na?” which means “Do you want to buy fish?” Two hours and 19 huts later, I had made 10.50 Cedis for Yakorl, which is just an okay morning for her. We had started late at 7am, so most people were already in their farms.

Here is Yakorl with her three children and sister:

More stories about Videre’s entrepreneurs to come! Follow @VidereOrg for realtime updates as I tweet in the villages.